The Horse: AAEP 2003: Foal Care From Birth to 30 Days

An oldie but goodie published in The Horse in January, 2004.  Still a very useful article about trouble signs to watch for in a newborn foal.

The Horse: AAEP 2003: Foal Care From Birth to 30 Days

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Been gone for awhile…

Hello fellow thoughtful horse people!  I’ve been away from my blog for awhile, dealing with some “whoa-Nellie!” family and business issues.  I’ve been thinking about a lot of things while I’ve been away.  So, welcome back to some interesting and fun discussions, thinking about horses!

Something to think about – Wild Horses II

Thought for today about wild horse adoption versus euthanasia:  The BLM needs an EXTREME MARKETING MAKEOVER!

Seriously, folks.  The American Mustang horse is one of the hardiest, sturdiest and most sensible horses you could ever want.  Just look at all the testimonials from people who have adopted them.  Based on the very few people I know here on the East Coast who have adopted a mustang, every one of them is happy.  I think there should be a serious breed registry for the American Mustang Horse, dedicated to promoting and preserving the breed.  Some breed registries like the Arabian Horse Association and American Quarter Horse Association are huge businesses that represent tens (hundreds) of thousands of horses, breeders and owners. 

Note to BLM:  I know some serious kick-butt marketing people who could help increase the public’s awareness of wild horses in a *positive* way — and help place more horses.  Another note:  recruit more horse trainers in highly populated areas in the eastern and far western U.S.  These people move a lot of horses every year, and could be instrumental in placing more Mustangs in new homes. 

Note to Horse people:  let the folks who can’t adopt a horse contribute to the foundations set up to protect the wild horses — those of us who CAN adopt, let’s do that.  For those of us who CAN train, why not pick up Mustang project horses the way some of us pick up TB’s (Thoroughbred’s) from the track?  I’m not advocating diverting any resources away TB adoptions — goodness knows that’s another very important endeavor – just pointing out that Mustangs are another source of horses that can be re-trained to lead very useful lives.

Another thought:  If a breed registry were established with the horses’ brand, and/or the horses were microchipped:

• ownership transfers could be recorded,
• the horses themselves could be tracked more easily, which could help reduce concerns about the horses being abused, neglected or sent to slaughter,
• an organized breed registry could work toward recognition of the American Mustang with major performance competition registries like the USEF (U.S. Equestrian Federation) and other affiliated performance registries.  With the tracking of performance results for the American Mustang would come year-end awards, prizes, and a considerable increase in the appreciation of the breed.

With that, I think I’ll pat myself on the back and start working on that breed registry thing.  If you are interested in participating, please comment on this post!

So, you want breed your mare? Step 1:

First things first:  take an unemotional look at your reason for becoming a horse breeder. 

Horse breeding can be very exciting and rewarding.  Honestly, watching the babies cavort in the pasture, observing the miracle of birth (I never get tired of it!), participating in handling and teaching the babies and watching over them as they grow up are some of the highlights of my life.  Horse breeding is an activity that will require you to acquire considerable knowledge in order to do it well.  In addition, you will spend a considerable amount of time and money to produce offspring.  Aside from your risk, breeding is also a risky business for your mare.  You owe it to yourself and your mare to be well prepared if you’re going to embark on a breeding adventure.  Read on to decide whether you’re up for the challenge!

Rule #1:  The veterinarian is your friend.  Particularly when you find a veterinarian who either specializes in reproduction or has a lot of experience with reproduction in his/her practice.  Choose your repro vet carefully, as your mare’s life and the life of her foal could depend on it.  Many vets do not get much exposure to reproductive courses in vet school, and unless they choose to intern or do post-graduate work in a clinical setting that includes repro work, you simply can’t assume that every vet has repro experience.  Reproductive work is extremely demanding on a vet in terms of quality of life — scheduling a life around closely-timed breedings and foalings (which usually occur in the middle of the night) is tough.  Therefore, not too many vets choose equine reproduction as a career path.  So, talk to your vet about breeding before you proceed.  Some vets will say “no thanks” and refer you to a qualified repro vet.  There’s nothing wrong with having your regular vet and a repro vet, as long as they agree to work together.  If your vet agrees to do your repro work, make certain he/she commits to being on call for you 24/7 when necessary, and make certain of his/her qualifications in equine reproduction.  Her/his experience should be relevant and recent, and she/he should have a solid relationship with the nearest equine hospital and at least one other reproductive vet.  If you have some special requirements that demand a reproduction specialist, you may even have a third vet involved — a theriogenologist. 

Some things to think about when considering whether to breed your mare:

• What qualities does this mare possess that make you believe she will produce a desirable offspring?  At this stage, it’s really important that you be honest and realistic with yourself.
• Is the mare sound and completely healthy?  Does the mare suffer from any chronic conditions that might affect her ability to bear and rear a foal?  Examples might include severe injury/lameness, any number of equine viruses, past history of losing a foal, hemorraging, etc.  Does the mare have any genetic defects that have affected her usefulness, could be passed on to the foal, or could affect her ability to carry a foal to term and nurse it for at least four months?  If so, you should very seriously consider whether breeding is a good idea.  If you’re not sure, consult with a veterinarian whose opinion you trust.  I’ve run a couple of mares past my vet and have decided against breeding based on his recommendations. 
• Have you assessed her conformation?  What are her conformational strong and weak points?  Do you know how to do a conformation assessment on your mare (don’t worry, lots of people don’t)?  If not, here’s your first opportunity to learn something essential to the success of your breeding program!  Learning about conformation qualities might seem a little like learning to rate wines.  Some of the terminology may seem fairly esoteric.  However, what it’s really all about is your horse’s anatomy, and whether her anatomy lends itself to the type of work you want her to do.  Different conformation characteristics are desirable for different disciplines — what may be very desirable in a driving horse, may be very undesirable for a dressage horse.  Some conformation “flaws” are undesirable for just about any equine sport, so you’ll need to know whether your mare has any of those — another reason to think hard about suitability for breeding.
• is she registered with a breed registry?  If not, is she eligible to be entered in any breed registries as a broodmare? 
• What is her temperament like?  Is she easy to handle?  Keep in mind that your mare is going to be teaching your foal how to behave.  So, if she’s a pill, prepare for pill squared! 

The likelihood of your mare’s characteristics (both good and bad) being passed from the mare to the foal is a hotly debated topic in the breeding world.  To some extent it depends on the prepotency of the stallion.  For sure, at least some of the mare’s good points and some of her bad points will show up in the foal.  A rule of thumb that I use, for which I freely admit I have no scientific evidence, is that 60% of my mare’s characteristics will pass on to the foal.  One thing is for certain:  the health of the foal will be largely dependent upon the health of the mare, as it will be spending 11 months in her womb, and the mare has a significant impact on the foal’s initial training about how to get along in the world.

• What do you plan to do with the foal?  If you plan to sell it, how and where do you plan to market it? 
• If you can’t sell the foal, what will you do with it? 
• Do you have a budget for your breeding project?  Assume that the cost of the pregnancy and getting a live foal through it’s first year of life will cost a *minimum* of four times the stud fee.  If you’re thinking of breeding for your own enjoyment, making a profit might not be important to you.  However, if you’re planning to sell your foal, be aware that making a profit as a horse breeder is extremely difficult. 

More on each of these areas coming up in future posts!  Stay tuned.

Dung Beetles Rock!

You could call this an ode to the Scarab Beetle — a much more artistic and acceptable name for those little (and sometimes not so little) beetles that live to eat, drink and reproduce in poo! 

I have (quite by accident) a really beneficial ecosystem going on in my horse pastures, supported by dung beetles. That’s right, dung beetles! Little shiny scarab-like beetles that I’ve always known lived in the ground on my farm, but never fully appreciated – until now.

 Before you write me off as a complete crackpot, let me explain. First you have to realize that anyone who calls themselves a horse farmer is really a “grass farmer.”  Or for those of you who don’t have pasture or don’t grow your own, you’re dependent upon a “grass farmer” who provides your hay.   While it’s possible to raise horses without pastures, the very best way to keep the average horse sleek and healthy is to have plenty of well-managed grass pasture for the herd to graze on (I could write an e-book about pasture management; maybe I will someday!).Until recently, I never realized that my decision to use natural products and very limited quantities of chemical pesticides and herbicides has had some special benefits that I didn’t count on. Now, even though I temporarily have a few more horses than I really should on my pastures (overpopulation is a bad thing for growing grass), I’ve noticed that the individual manure piles dropped by my horses disappear very quickly – they sort of spread out, become desiccated and disappear! I always thought the birds must be digging in them for grain.  Maybe they are.  But as it turns out, it’s the dung beetles who are doing the lion’s share of that work.

Manure laying around in horse pastures is a bad thing – any “grass farmer” will tell you that. Manure harbors flies and fly larvae, which torment the horses and spread disease. More importantly, manure harbors parasites that can permanently harm and even kill horses. If left laying around in piles in the pasture, manure allows parasites to spread from horse to horse while they’re grazing. I have several horses tested each year to check for parasites, and the results are always really good. Turns out, the dung beetles have been helping to control the parasite population, which is complementing our regular de-worming program! I hear people talking about having to buy equipment to drag their pastures or pick up manure to keep their horses healthy and reduce parasites – I never have to do that – the manure piles just disappear within a couple of days. Pasture vacuum prices start at $3,000.   I’ll take free pasture manure management any day.  Dung beetles rock!

 

I always assumed that everyone with manure-making livestock has dung beetles just like I do (where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right?). Turns out, horse farms that are near large crop farms generally don’t have as many (or any) dung beetles. The pesticide/herbicide runoff from the crop fields kills or shortens the life cycles of the dung beetles.   Some local horse farmers in my area suffer from too much manure collecting in their pastures and too-high parasite loads in their horses.  If your pasture’s manure piles don’t disappear within one to two days, you probably are lacking dung beetles. 

Stay tuned for more dung beetle entomology — how to encourage them to thrive on your farm, what wormers to avoid at certain times of the year, and other benefits of beneficial bugs. 

 

 

Something to think about – Wild Horses I

I call this posting “Wild Horses I” because I have a feeling there will be a II and possibly a III, etc.  Everyone who knows me is aware that I get my knickers knotted whenever the subject of unwanted horses comes up and the speaker is (IMHO) speaking from a strictly sentimental or naieve viewpoint without attempting to base their opinions on any facts.  I love horses; I’ve dedicated a large portion of my life and my resources to caring for them as part of my personal passion and for business.  I also am a life-long learner, and I believe in educating myself by trying to gain factual information from both sides of an issue before making judgments.   

I have received numerous e-mails in the past weeks from people who are upset about the BLM (Bureau of Land Management, part of the U.S. Department of the Interior) announcement after the June 30th advisory board meeting of the Wild Horse and Bureau Advisory Board that BLM is considering euthanising horses. 

There seems to be a significant amount of mis-information and hysteria floating around.  I’m hearing things like “BLM is going to kill 30,000 horses!” and “America’s wild horses are soon going to be extinct!”  I have been researching those claims, along with statistics published by the Bureau of Land Management, to try to satisfy myself about the truth.  I will share with you what I’ve found, and I welcome your comments.  Ultimately, I wish to present a balanced discussion of the current situation of the American Mustangs, the BLM’s current problems and plans for the Mustangs, and reasonable approaches and options for dealing with the issue.  I hope that others with similar concerns will join in.  It would be great if people with first-hand knowledge of wild mustangs and the issues of herd management on public lands would comment.

If you are a victim of mass hysteria and all you have to contribute is “omg save the pretty horses from extinction!”  you probably won’t find much of a sympathetic ear here.  However, if you have reliable information,  intelligent questions and comments, please do contribute. 

I don’t claim to have any answers, at least not at the moment, but as someone who is concerned with the welfare of horses on a day-to-day basis, I feel compelled to get to the bottom of the current BLM issue — hope you’ll come along with me.  

Some questions to be addressed:

- what exactly is the BLM proposing to do?  what is the BLM’s authority to euthanize horses?  Why does BLM feel that’s necessary at this time?  Who decides whether to euthanize horses, and which ones will be euthanized?

- how many wild horses are there?  how much land do they inhabit — how has the amount of land dedicated to the horses changed over the years (if at all)?  where are the horses that are in “holding facilities” kept?

- what exactly is the BLM’s budget for wild horses, and how is it spent? 

- what has the BLM done to control the horse population to-date?  are the wild horses endangered?

- what can I do to help?

Something to think about — unwanted horses and other musings

No, this is not another post on the BLM/Wild Horse issue, although it’s related, and there will be more posts on the Wild Horse subject soon.  There are some highly recommended links at the end of this post, so be sure to check them out.

To get into the horse slaughter discussion is to really “step in it.”  But it’s difficult to talk about the issue of how to deal with the large number of unwanted horses in this country without talking about it, and some other highly-charged issues.  So pull on your virtual muck boots and lets go — it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.

Things I think about on a regular basis:

- Stewardship of equines is our responsibility as humans.  Can we all agree on that?  It’s a basic premise for everything that follows.  If you disagree, send a post and lets talk about it.

- I have not been totally anti-slaughter because I can’t think of an alternative.  While I believe that many horses bound for slaughter are treated inhumanely, the vision of tens of thousands of starving and mistreated horses dying slowly because no one can care for them seems worse.  I’m pretty sure all the people who insist that we could have found suitable adoptive homes for the 70,000 or so horses that went to slaughter last year are living on Planet Pollyanna.  If all the horse rescues are already bursting at the seams, where are we going to find an additional number of homes with responsible people who have the means and the knowledge to care for these horses?

- If there was a truly humane way to dispose of unwanted horses, would it matter whether the meat was bound for human consumption outside the U.S.?  The answer isn’t a simple yes or no.  Humane euthanasia involves drugs that render horses unfit for human consumption.  In fact, given the chemicals we use in wormer — read the label! — the vast majority of horses should not be entering the food supply, regardless of what country they’re headed for.  So, I guess whether people eat them or not should be a moot point.

- If the slaughter methods used for horses are exactly the same as the slaughter methods for cows and pigs, isn’t slaughter of all livestock equally inhumane?  Why are those methods ok for meat that we eat here in the U.S., and not for horse meat?  If we can set up a space station, shouldn’t we be able to figure out a humane way of slaughtering all kinds of animals that we need for food?  I’m not saying we should stop raising animals for meat or stop eating meat.  I am saying that we should insist that the animals we intend to eat should be healthy, transported safely and comfortably, and not subjected to stress, fear or pain in the process of converting them from living beings to our sustenance. 

- Do all the horses that go to slaugher represent unwanted horses? Apparently not.  Some people who send their horses to dealers and auctions apparently have no idea that the high bidder might be a kill dealer.  That’s the waay the dealers want it — otherwise they’d have a lot fewer customers.  Depending on the demand for meat and the kill dealer’s desire to meet his quota, it might be difficult to outbid him.  One interesting statistic that I read recently indicated that horse theft dropped by 34% in California when that state outlawed selling horses for slaughter.  Makes you think, doesn’t it?  I’ve read some reports recently of horses rescued from slaughter whose original owners specifically noted in their bills of sale that the horse should never go to auction, but that’s where the horses ended up anyway.  My take on it:  don’t kid yourself about horse auctions (I’m told that the majority of horses sold at New Holland are bound for slaughter) and NEVER send your horse to an auction unless you are ok with it going to slaughter.  If you don’t believe me, stick around at the end of an auction and watch the dealers who are loading up a whole bunch of horses on a trailer.  Chances are good that they’re heading north or south to a slaughterhouse in Canada or Mexico.

-  Big sources of horses that go to slaughter:  The Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing industries — both through overbreeding and breeding nurse mares, and the Premarin industry.  Some of the results of these breeding programs are perfectly good horses.  Others are inbred nightmares that aren’t suitable to be sport or companion horses.  Horse breeders (myself included) have an obligation to produce animals that will have a decent life, and do everything we can to ensure it.  Some large-scale breeders kill or send the foals to slaughter right away if they won’t be suitable for the purpose they were bred for.  Is that wrong?  I’m not sure.

- There’s probably a lot more that we could be doing toward the goal of being ultimately responsible for the horses we bring into the world — such as making sure all horses are registered and microchipped.  Yes, microchipped.  I know a lot of people are against requiring that, but I’ve come to believe the benefits outwiegh the negatives.  Here’s a scenario:  I put specific instructions in my horse’s registration that he is never to be sold at auction or sent to slaughter.  That information is stored in a national datbase somewhere, along with the horse’s pedigree and chain of ownership.  There’s a person with a scanner at the auction house scanning horses and checking brands, and my horse brings up an alert when scanned.  The alert is recorded, along with the name of the auction house, and a contact person for the horse and the breed registry are notified.  It’s up to the breed registry whether they notify the breeder and/or the last owner of record.  The auction house risks prosecution, both civil and criminal if it sells the horse.  A local horse rescue that is funded by the state to protect such horses is notified, and they collect the horse from the auction house.  If the horse was stolen, the owner can get him back.  If the horse is unwanted, the rescue will attempt to place him and if he can’t be placed in a new home, he will be humanely euthanized, and that information will also be communicated to the breed registry.  I would be willing to pay a small additional fee to the state for each horse I sell, and/or to the breed registry when I register the horse to defray the cost of administering such a program.  The above doesn’t take into account “backyard bred” horses that don’t have a breed-registry pedigree.  I’m sure the model could be adjusted to include them.  I have a lot of other ideas about the benefits of microchipping, but I’ll save them for another blog post.   

So, what do you think of my ideas?  Here’s a link to a good article with a fairly realistic assessment of the unwanted horse and slaughter issue:  http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/features/horseslaughter-152.shtml.  Here’s a link to information about Temple Grandin and humane slaughter methods:  http://spiritofhumane.com.  Lots of information about Thoroughbreds, TB racing, horse welfare and off-the-track TB’s can be found at www.alexbrownracing.com.

Q: What’s a theriogenologist?

A:  A veterinarian who is a reproductive specialist. 

While many veterinarians are qualified to do reproductive work, a board-certified theriogenologist is usually called in when special expertise is required.  Examples include:  fertility problems, insemination with frozen semen, special insemination techniques (deep horn insemination, for example), embryo transfer, etc. 

While your regular veterinarian can probably refer you to a theriogenologist, The Society for Theriogenology can help you locate one here:  http://www.therio.org/search.cfm

What’s going on here…

This is an area where we’ll post reviews — both picks and pans – of products we’ve tried.  In the future we plan to add some surveys and polls about products so you can see what others like and dislike too.   Got a favorite fly sheet?  A better solution to foal hock sores?  Some newfangled gadget that was a complete waste of money that could have gone toward perfectly good horse treats?  Tell us about it!